I'm really sorry for littering your comment board, but one more thing, a question:

In what ways are Levesque's 'sovereignty-association' and Dumont's 'autonomism' different?

Dumont started the ADQ with Jean Allaire. His report wanted to limit federal jurisdiction to "defence, tariffs, currency, management of the public debt, and equalization." Essentially, as I wrote last night, it was separation from everything but Canadian money and the Canadian military.

How is that different than the sovereignty association that Levesque pushed for his entire career as Premier?

How is renaming the Province of Quebec the "Autonomous State of Quebec," as Dumont promises, different from what Levesque had on order?

How is campaigning for separation in 1995 any different than what Levesque would have wanted?

To me both sets of visions for sovereignty are oddly if not almost identically similar, although one more cleverly disguised.

how do u figure harper won??? his man in quebec the one he poured money in to help lost big time, the only reason dumond is in opposition is because of the word autonomist, that word is as ridiculous as "lend me your vote", charest and boisclair had negatives against them, dumond is seen as a joke,but again the word autonomist is the key here, it gave disatisfied nationalists an open door to vote for someone else, mark my words, the center right in quebec is dead as the union national, its not the same place as the old days, with P. Marois or even G. Duceppe, we are back to reality, that there is a 40% core vote for the "nation", and it belongs to the p.q. and anyone not facing this reality is blind. But i do hope that harper sees it the way u do, and tries his hand at an election, we will see the same result as we have seen in this election, quebec canot be bought, and social conservatism is not acceptable to that province, keep this in mind, polls of anykind lately have been dead wrong, and are as useless as autonomist, it was just a clever manipulation of the moment.

What the hell are you talking about Antonio? ADQ is not a seperatist Party. Dumont has stated so many times, he wants more powr for Quebec a standard Conservatve mantra about decentarlizing power from federalism. The ADQ is conservative. Harper will call an election now, but I'm not sure he won. Quebecers proved last night that they can't be bought and are smarter than bantant rhetoric gives them credit. Sovereignty lost last night big time. Harper is left blowing in the wind.

Most of Quebec's autonomist demands can be satisfied if the federal government would respect the separation of powers in our existing constitution, and exercise restraint in wielding the federal spending power.

More "nation-building" should occur in provincial capitals, and less in Ottawa.

Too many so-called federalists want to maintain the existential tension.

The federal government should focus on Canada's role in the world, in building our economic relationship with Asia, and leave the provinces to do what they were assigned to do in the Constitution.

The "separatists" are getting old. We should not make a new generation of separatists out of a new generation of proud Quebecers.

Quebecers have a strong dual attachment. They wouldn't demand for it to be put in a Constitutional Arrangement (via distinctness or nation) if the rest of Canada would just recognize that distinctness more strongly in practice. (Being a Westerner, one of our grievances is that we would like a little reciprocity out of Quebec, and not just be characterized with the offensive label English Canadian.)

The notion of equality in the postmodern context does not mean the same. Many of the same people who argue so vociferously that disparate treatment is essential for substantive equality of disadvantaged groups with respect to charter rights, refuse to extend postmodern equality to the provincial level, and revert the the notion that equality means the same.

1) I think at least part of the PQ's problems had to do with the personal unpopularity of Andre Boisclair and the demise of separatism is being vastly overstated.

2) Antonio you promised we had heard the end of fiscal imbalance. How much more could you possibly want?

3) The best way to resurrect the separatist movement is as Andrew Coyne put it last night to engage in more doomed constitutional negotiations in which Quebec is promised more than the rest of Canada can deliver.

I think its important to note that the PQ only fell about 5% from 2003. It might have translated heavily in terms of seat count but is hardly an historic routing, especially when you consider that only 5% separated the third place PQ from the first place Liberals. With a leader who isnt a bumbling fool they could be back in a big way. Those of you who are celebrating Harper's Quebec strategy are getting a little premature.

I feel bad for André. He was dogged for the entire leadership race by accusations that he wasn't a strong enough sovereigntist and was, unwillingly, crucified on that issue by the dogmatic, card-carrying members of his own party. Speaking to him off the record after a couple of the 2005 debates, I gathered, like a lot of others, that André's ambitions had little to do with referendum politics.

Boisclair was touted as the centre-right, or neoliberal, alternative to Pauline Marois' social democracy. Had he had his way, we would have seen a much more pragmatic platform with even greater emphasis on debt reduction and labour deregulation. And there would have been little, if any, mention of holding a referendum, let alone plans to do so.

We can all be thankful for how ridiculously dogmatic the PQ base and its labour friends are and for the political albatross they threw in Boisclair's lap at their policy convention when they voted to require a newly formed government to hold a referendum within its first term. Had André had his way, I think Jean Charest could well have come in third on Monday and Mario Dumont could have been our premier. So thank you PQ nutjobs.

Also, as much as we hate sovereigntists, is anyone else lamenting the loss of cute Elsie? Now there is no reason to watch the NA...